Kamala Harris campaigns for Abdul El-Sayed at Detroit maternal health roundtable
Former Vice President Kamala Harris came to Detroit on Tuesday with a clear message about who she wants representing Michigan in the U.S. Senate.
"I'm here to support Dr. El-Sayed because, on this subject, I know he will be a champion, and I have a right to say that. I've been a United States senator on this issue," Harris said.
The roundtable at Birth Detroit centered on Black maternal health, with providers and advocates talking about access to care before, during and after pregnancy.
"I always say that a maternal health crisis is a public health crisis, so we can't fix everything in the hospitals and the clinics. We have to have every entity to help us," said Dr. D'Angela Pitts, director of maternal and perinatal health outcomes for Henry Ford Health.
Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed — a physician and former Detroit health director — tied that conversation directly to his campaign.
"We are going to empower moms and babies not just to choose when, where, and with whom to have a child, but also to enrobe them with love and the services that they need, if and when they decide to have that child," El-Sayed said.
Harris said the outcome of the Senate race could directly affect healthcare policy, including maternal care.
"Black women are three to four times more likely to die in connection with childbirth, regardless of their education level or socioeconomic status," Harris said.
El-Sayed and Republican nominee Mike Rogers, a former congressman, are running for the seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. In a statement, Rogers responded to Harris' visit by casting it as a sign of weakness in El-Sayed's campaign.
"Desperate times call for desperate measures, and Abdul is so desperate that he's parachuting Kamala Harris into Michigan to save his flailing campaign," Rogers said in the statement. He referenced El-Sayed's past involvement in the 2024 "Uncommitted" movement against Harris and argued El-Sayed even called campaigning for her "the most difficult experience of [his] political career."
Rogers went on to blame Harris for inflation during her time in the White House and said he believes the two candidates share what he called "an extreme agenda" on costs, taxes and criminal justice.
El-Sayed and Rogers are running for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.
